Sermon - September 7, 2014

Scripture Text:Scripture Text: Romans 13:8-14 8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; 13 let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. The good news is that, rightly understood, the law can be an invitation to daily faithfulness. But the law can shackle us when it was not intended to do so in the way it was conceived of by God. Take for instance this most basic question of the New Testament that haunted disciples and early church leaders and teachers... "Who is my neighbor?" It is both a legal (law-centric) question and one of grace and mercy. The question was first asked by timid fishermen trying to create loopholes in their new faith so they did not have to care for everyone they encountered. That question becomes a call to service when the Apostle the Gentiles pens it for us. "Who is my neighbor?" they ask, hoping to hear an answer that served their desires and not his, hoping to hear that their neighbor was literally the person living next door, the one who they have coffee with each week, the one whose views on all things controversial is clear, and what's more, agreed upon. Their neighbor, in the mind's of those asking the question, was someone who did not challenge the theological status quo but affirmed whatever they were told to affirm. "Who is my neighbor?" the church wondered as radicals like Luther and Calvin were excommunicated. The church shuttered at Jan Hus and his singing in worship and John Wychliffe with his English Bible in toe. They were burned at the stake because they were not neighbors of the church because what they stood for was not God's word, in some people's minds, but humanities word and work masquerading as God's. Dissenters and doubters were chased from the church in the name of keeping God's word from the common people and letting those with power decide who was worthy of God and who was not. The Law of God in these cases served not to empower but to shackle. You see the answer to the question, if answered Biblically, begins to put a face to, as Karl Barth defines them, "the unknowable neighbors" (The Epistle to the Romans). If you identify your neighbors as only those who come to worship here, or even those who live down the street from you, then the answer is simple and so is the application of today's text. It is easy to serve them because they are you, and you are them. No behavior is challenged. But if you really look into the darkness that our text speaks of in verse 12, not just the darkness of Cranberry or the state of Pennsylvania, and not even just of the darkness of this country, if you gaze into the darkness of the entirety of Creation, as Paul saw it, then you see that the answer to the question is far from simple and its application is also far from simple. As you gaze into the dark which surrounds the path on which we walk, you begin to see as William Stafford says, "the darkness around us is deep." The law of misunderstood will chain you to expectations you cannot live up to and so you do not even attempt to do so. It will shackle you when God offers you something different. It is time to re-train the mind. Instead, God sends us something to combat that darkness, something expected and something not. God sends us love... But, God also sends us the law. Move 1- can they coexist Now naturally you begin to wonder when you hear the words 'love' and 'law' in the same sentence that something is array in the mind of the speaker. We've been conditioned to see these two concepts as separate; one necessary and one not in 2014- one for a previous age and one for the future. How many times have we said, or heard someone else say, that we are children of grace and not under the law any longer- which is true in some fashions, but not universal in Paul's mind when we are examining the question, "who is my neighbor that I should love?" Forget the question, 'can they coexist' because we believe they cannot in so many circumstances. We, like Jeremiah from last week, begin, as we think too long, on this subject begin to find ourselves living in tension as well. We are children of grace but also children of love and mercy. But Paul has a different take on that question of 'law and love'. For Paul, law and love can coexist because they work together for the glory of God in the caring of our neighbors. Just as we can coexist with God in the personhood of Jesus Christ, we know that God lives in us, it changes us from something depraved to something living in grace, and we know this truth down deep in our core. He is both the question and the answer as I look at my neighbor and my call to faithful living. I examine their value or worth or neediness in the eyes of the law and then I choose to apply love which, 'covers a multitude of sins.' Love creates value in them, in my neighbor, and in me. It sets us apart from things of this world that drive them back into the darkness and reminds me that they too are made in God's image and likeness and so they are worthy of the one great thing I can offer them- they deserve love. They deserve love from me because I am just as unworthy and just as underserving as they are if God was being honest with me. Yet God frees me from that conclusion and elevates me to a place reserved for his chosen. In our world we hear about coexistence a great deal. There are even bumper stickers which tell us as the church to coexist with not only the Jewish church, but with the Muslim and Hindu faith as well. We are told to coexist for that is the way of the future, but if only they knew what they were championing and sacrifice all that makes us distinct and unique in God's eyes. However, God's love and God's law unites us to each other, they serve as both the mortar and the bricks to build upon the foundation that is Christ Jesus. Coexist, sure, but only as I exist in God's love and God's law. Coexist not for the sake of coexisting but for the sake of combining the law of God with his love. Move 2- put sin away Salvation is indeed near to us, as our text says so boldly, if we can see the value of the law of God and his love working together for God's glory- then at that moment, salvation comes into our homes. This is the moment where sin is put away because rather than condemn us, the law serves as an identification point for all of us. The law reminds us of the debt we owe the Savior. Once we feel the heaviness of that debt, then mercy begins to spring up in our minds and we want to serve, we want to love them. It looks something like this... If you are condemned because of your participation in the many sins listed in verse thirteen, and I too am condemned for them, because I practice them as well, then there is nothing left that creates a sense of entitlement in me. There is nothing left that tells me I am better than you because I do not sin as grievously as you do- which is simply a delusion if we believe the contrary. So together we put away that which divides us from God and we become one body with one Lord. We put away the things we gratify in our mortal beings and willingly put on the armor of light which will press the deep darkness we walk in back away from our heels. We put on The Lord Jesus Christ and we allow him to rule in our lives and create in us a spirit of willing service. The good news is that, rightly understood, the law with all it condemnation and judgment can become a call to joint faithfulness and empowerment. The law can remind the people of how far they have fallen from God, it can remind them how greatly their need of God is, and it can invite them to love each other because salvation comes to them all. For salvation is offered out of nothing but love and acceptance from Jesus. We must live as though there is one obligation, one rule, one thing that continually gnaws at us- the debt of love we have toward God and how we will express that indebtedness to the people around our world. Conclusion We are all each other's neighbors. There is none more or less worthy of the title 'neighbor.' All of us have the obligation of love the people around us because love frees us, love allow us to coexist here. It because of this spirit we come to the Lord's Table this morning. We come affirming that which makes us different and that which makes us the same. We come testifying to the fact that we, like thousands of disciples before us, have sought ways to divide the world from the church so we do not have to accept them and love them as Christ loved them. We come today, proclaiming that salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. We come today to receive from him something that in its physical essence reminds us of a Savior who came to complete the law and find the unknown neighbors. Let us, after we have taken the break and cup as a church, look for the isolated, the outcast, the ones who feel no one loves them because their sin is too great to love. And in the name of Jesus, let us love them.